Praet was chief economist for
Fortis Bank. Between 1999 and 2000, he served as chief of staff to Belgian Finance Minister
Didier Reynders. In this capacity, his main task was to lay the ground for Reynders’
Eurogroup presidency in 2001 and oversee the country's most ambitious tax-reform plan in decades. Praet was executive director of the
National Bank of Belgium from 2000 to 2011. He was also a member of the
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and an alternate member of the
Bank for International Settlements' Global Economy Meeting. At the same time, he was professor of
Monetary Economics at the
Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management.
European Central Bank, 2011–2019 Before his appointment, Praet was nominated several times by the Belgian government to join the
ECB Board. In 2004, his candidacy failed when the German, French, Italian and Spanish governments agreed the biggest Eurozone countries should always have a national member on the six-member board, and therefore chose
José Manuel González-Páramo. In 2010, when Praet was proposed to the bank's vice-presidency, governments agreed that the position should go to a sitting governor of a central bank and not, as Praet then was, a director; as a consequence,
Vítor Constâncio was chosen by the
European Council to replace
Lucas Papademos as vice-president. In 2011, Praet replaced
Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell; the other candidate for the position had been
Elena Kohútiková. Praet's appointment as ECB chief economist, which prepares recommendations on interest rate decisions superseded recommendations in favor of French and German counterparts. It was the first time in the bank's then 13-year history that the economics portfolio was given to a non-German. Peter Praet retired in June 2019 after an eight-year run at the ECB. ==Other activities==